As a child I was brought up in “liberal Protestantism.” Later on I became acquainted with the different phases of secularistic thought. The scientist and phenomenist philosophy of my teachers at the Sorbonne at last made me despair of reason. At one time I thought I might be able to find complete certitude in the… continue reading

We have said that in the ordinary course it is principally by its sincerity or single-mindedness that an effort at reform or revolution is made effective and that it has a chance of success in the actual order o things. But how is this possible in the case of an effort to renew the temporal… continue reading

I take the liberty of insisting thereon: if Christians, in effect, were to renounce keeping in their hearts the desire for sanctity (even if they only desire it very distantly, excessively distantly, even if they live in evil), this would be an ultimate betrayal against God and against the world. The saints participate throughout the… continue reading

(A free translation by Peter Maurin from a chapter in the untranslated volume of Maritain–The Temporal Regime and Liberty. (Later published in English as Freedom in the Modern World.) 1. GOING TO THE ROOTS In trying to bring the spirit of the Gospel, the spirit of integral humanism into the cultural  and temporal order, people fail to realize  the… continue reading